Friday, May 25, 2007

Enough secrecy in the DA's office!

The chief prosecutor of Humboldt County has us scratching our heads with his waffling over making his office's “use of force” policy available to the public.

The issue arose when District Attorney Paul Gallegos and his new investigator, former Eureka police Sgt. Mike Hislop, proposed to beef up their firepower with the purchase of eight AR-15 semiautomatic rifles. This triggered questions from Loretta Nicklaus, Humboldt County's administrative officer, who wondered whether the DA had the need, training and policies in place for such an arsenal -- a use of force policy, in particular.

While working on a story about the new weapons, two Times-Standard reporters sought a copy of the DA's policy. Gallegos initially said he would get them a copy, then changed his mind and wouldn't even let them view the document. The Times-Standard then made a formal request a week ago under the state Public Records Act. Gallegos has 10 days to release the use of force policy, or to explain his legal reasons for withholding it.

Since then, Gallegos has offered these comments about the issue, via e-mail:

* “I never said that the information was not available under the Freedom of Information Act. Quite the contrary, I informed you that our use of force policy is not a public record.” To throw around some legal Latin, that's a non sequitur. A FOIA request is the federal equivalent of the California Public Records Act, and is a tool used to pry PUBLIC records out of reluctant PUBLIC officials.

* “I have some reluctance to make use of force policies public information . . . especially when there is no claim that anyone (in the DA's office) has unlawfully used force.”

That has no bearing on whether a policy is public or not. But perhaps Gallegos and his team are being overly sensitive to community polarization about four shooting deaths involving Eureka police officers, going back to Cheri Lyn Moore more than a year ago. DA investigations and findings on three of those deaths are pending, including Moore's.

* “I also informed you that, if you heard from others that (our use of force policy is a public record), to let me know and I would consider others' determinations.”

The Eureka Police Department and the county sheriff's department say their use of force policies are open to the public, as does the DA in San Diego County. So do two open-records experts we checked with -- attorneys who said the law is clear: The public not only has a right to view use of force policies, but to receive copies.

Also, the California Peace Officers' Association says such policies are important in creating public confidence in law enforcement. To do that, of course, the public must know what the policy is.

We have to wonder: Why all this bobbing and weaving, especially by somebody who should know the law? If the DA's office has a use of force policy, let's see it. If it does not, then it should 'fess up and create one (the California Peace Officers' Association has a sample you can adapt). Then put it online, so everyone can see it. That should free up time to produce the long-overdue report on Moore's death.

51 comments:

Oh SNAP, Paul. Clearly you're not so much in the smarts department, so let's review: you've destroyed the CAST program and you won't release public documents that prove it, you don't care if people abuse their animals, you're a habitual plagiarist, you haven't gotten a solid win on even one important prosecution in four and a half years, you want to turn your ex-wife beating chief investigator and his untrained staff loose on the world with assault rifles, you can't make a decision within 14 months about a police shooting that involved two of your investigators, and now even the one newspaper in town willing to look the other way until your most recent episode of stupid has decided enough is enough.

Ouch. Your sky is falling. It's time to run off to SoHum and set up your own 40 acres and a drug mule. It's your only hope now, and that's if the marijuana growers whose assets you seek to confiscate will let you.

Why do you think that Salzman and Sterling would address anything? Don't you know that PVG is their puppet and doesn't do anything with out their say so... Atleast that's the way he acts... He'll most people could make a decision on most things. He waffles back and forth so much it's sick.

Now, doesn't that make you a teensy bit apprehensive that he's the person making decisions about violent criminals?

The DA's who worked with him when he took office knew this (they had cases against him when he was a defense attorney.) They also worked with him and saw him constantly shoot from the hip without ever bothering to crack a legal book and learn the law. The officers knew from working with Gallegos too. All these people tried to inform the public, but Gallegos's supporters threw out the two issues that pushed a lot of buttons---PL and marijuana.

Now, he is finally being unmasked, albeit slowly. For the dismissed PL suit and 99 plants, you have an incompetent and secretive DA. Those traits in combination are very bad news for this community. He's bungling things and hiding it.

The ER has been pissed off for a long time. It's just that before now, the TS refused to recognize the reality of the situation and take responsibility for the bill of goods they helped sell us. Let's keep in mind who endorsed whom this past election. Let's also remember which newspaper broke the DA armament story and so many other scandals before it.

Still, however, the T-S defection from the Gallegos glee club will have far-reaching implications. Now the ER, the TS, the NCJ and the Eye are all on the same page. Gags has nowhere left to hide, no one left to do his bidding. This is going to get interesting.

Gallegos has unabashedly lied to the press many times in the past without consequence. Now, they are not taking him at his word and asking for documentation. The top law enforcement official in the county been caught plagerizing and lying---he should be thrown out on his ear.

Previous statement like, "I prevent crime by preventing crime" will no longer fly with our local reporters. They know the score now.

Rather than answer Heather Muller's questions.Gallegos called the Times Standard in to put on his little dog'n pony show with the two "old" rifles, expecting they would prop him back up and whitewash his debacle.

It was incredibly disrespectful for him to do that. And I don't mean disrespectful to Heather Muller, though it was that, too, but disrespectful to the Times Standard reporters. Then to lie to them, and equivocate when they asked a simple follow up question, and then to perpetutate the lie, forcing them to file a public records act request, was just plain stupid.

Hey 948. Who will we get to replace him in a recal? The Best Candidate has left and is now in El Dorado County. I don't think he would come back... not after the people of this county have treated him.

The community has suffered enough. When, in early 2003, Richard Salzman first told me there was a rumor circulating that a Recall effort was underway, I told him to forget about it - that people here are very forgiving, and that a Recall would never succeed.

He, however, wanted the Recall. He believed Paul would survive it and that he would then be "untouchable." Of course at the time, I had no idea the resources that were at Richard's disposal to mount a national PR campaign to protect his newfound tool - or why it was so important to him.

I have long contended that Richard caused the Recall to come about, by putting out his ad campaign, stirring emotions and inciting rancor while he laid the groundwork for Paul's image as the gallant David against Goliath. A sham from the word go.

While I am generally a believer in the concept of Recalls as the voter's right to say, "we made a mistake," or, "we were snookered, and we are not going to stand for that," I believe the right thing here is for Gallegos to resign. To spare the community any more shame and turmoil. To allow the system to right itself. That would be the honorable thing to do.

Rose, you are stuck in 2003 and 2004. Salzman is so yesterday. For such a great mastermind, he sure was vanquished pretty easily. And if you think Pauls association with Salzman helped him win in 2006, you are utterly delusional.

If you people weren't so eager to have him removed at all costs after he beat Farmer,he probably would never have been re-elected,and you wouldn't still be complaining about his job performance(which I'll admit has been dismal).So was it Salzman or Palco who dumped $250,000+ into the recall?I would assume that Paul,Palco,and Salzman together brokered the deal to begin the recall?You are far off in your estimation on how many voters were simply disgusted by the recall itself(me included),it was enough to sway the past election Paul's way. Another recall will get you nowhere,unless you're worried about politicos who would off of one going broke.The best thing to do is keep an eye on everything that happens in the office until his tenure is over.

You are absolutely right, mresquan. Every good and decent person was absolutely horrified at the notion that Palco, or anyone, with enough money, could try to buy their way out of a lawsuit. They believed it was wrong, and they rose up to defend the public judicial system from corruption. They did the right thing.

It's what they didn't know that has always troubled me, they didn't know about Salzman and Shellenberger, and the equally powerful forces buoying Paul.

There was no way to know what Paul was, or what damage he was about to do.

If he were a different person, whose decency and morals matched those of the voters who believed in him, we wouldn't be in this position.

How about PVG's statement that meth is not a problem anymore? Or it's less of a problem in Hummboldt ? DID he really say this on the radio ????? Can he be that blind? It must be that preventing crime by preventing crime stuff again.

And waht about the rulling on the Moor shooting !!!??? What about a ruling on the shooting at the motel ??!?!?!? HOW long does it take?

I see Allison Jackson around the courthouse all the time. She's around if called upon. But the fact is the election is years away and to run against Paul will require upwards of $200,000. Is she willing to make that kind of committment now? Are the people who want Paul out willing to committ to that kind of money up front. I know I wouldn't want to throw my hat into the ring on vague promises of support.

I want to know where all the police review jackasses like Greg Allen and Christina Notbright are and why the silence? Gallegos, dim bulb that he is, doesn't even know the law that he, as the chief law enforcement officer of the county (gawd, that makes my physically ill just to type) is sworn to uphold and enforce. If you walked up to the front counter of any local PD (ok, maybe not Blue Lake) and ask for a copy of their use of force policy, they'd burn you a copy on the spot. Why are the cop-haters silent? Their golden boy screwed up and now they are in a quandry.

When questioned about the Animal Abuse case, Gallegos claimed he didn't prosecute the case "in the interests of justice" because he would have had "issues of proof."

Turned out there was videotaped evidence.

"District Attorney Paul Gallegos said Monday that the first case, involving the 122 alleged misdemeanor violations, was received by his office June 15, 2004, and was rejected Oct. 26 of the same year.

“These were regulatory offenses, not neglect offenses,” Gallegos said, adding that the reason given in the file for rejection of the charges was “interests of justice.”

“There could have been issues of proof,” he said.

The alleged felony offense of abuse of the horse was received by the DA’s office July 9, 2004, and rejected Aug. 23, 2004, for lack of evidence, according to Gallegos.

“We can do nothing unless we have sufficient evidence of an offense,” he said. “That’s it in a nutshell.”

Sheriff’s Office Public Information Officer Brenda Godsey said Tuesday that she could not speak to the evidentiary value of information provided to the DA’s Office, but could officially confirm that a videotape had been booked into evidence."

This is a pattern of behavior with countless examples. Lie. Then equivocate when questioned further, or caught. Then, after his handlers have cooked up a plausible scenario, try to recover. But, time and again, his answers to not add up to the truth.

It's simple. if there is no policy, he lied when he said there was one, and he lied again when he said it would not be released because it was not a public document, and it takes time to figure out how to line up witnesses to say the policy existed.

Where is it, when was it written, who wrote it, who approved it, who has copies.

"Certainly" the office had a 'use of force policy.' No doubt it has been in existence for countless years, and it is filed somewhere. But Gallegos doesn't know what it is, what it says, where it is, or who knows where it is, since he has "lost" all of the people with the institutional memory, and all of the people who know how things are supposed to work. He spoke without thinking he would be questioned, and then tried to cover his tracks. It's stupid, but it is typical.

No doubt he is working overtime trying to construct one. Question is, will it be backdated?

There is no policy. If there was, Dawson or his son in law Hislop would have produced it for Hislop's boss by now. If anyone was going to apply force, it would have been Dawson's investigators (Now Hislop's).If a policy existed, Dawson wrote it or had a role in writing it, and would be able to put his hand on it, and to help Hislop do so. Only one conclusion can be drawn from the Dawson/Hislop silence on this issue.And what about Farmer? Anyone thought to ask him about whether his office had such a policy?What to think if a policy suddenly appears?Who wrote it, when, where was it kept, etc etc.

HMM, so Hislop's boss is in a little hot water over a policy which Hilsop's daddy in law would have to know about, and it would help the boss to produce such a policy, making a BIG iou, especially if the policy had to be back dated, and yet still no policy has been "discovered" in a file somewhere.

It's going to be hard to swallow the "oh, here it is, silly me it was in this file cabinent" story when it appears.

Nobody in Humbodlt has a problem with serial liars in office, do they?

A "use of force" policy is NOT a policy unless it is written down and placed (retained) in some kind of policy manual. These days many agencies keep their policy manual online with a hard copy back up. If it is not written down and placed in a policy manual then the best is can be is an SOP, an informal SOP. LE agencies want their policies accessible to their employees so they, the employee, can look some policy or issue up easily if they have a question or doubt.

Any legitimate, professional law enforcment agency is going to have a use of force policy, a shooting policy and each of their gun toting employees, (cops deputies investigators) is going to have a pretty good idea of what that policy is. It is a very big issue. VERY BIG. And ALL law enforcement agencies know it. For a law enforcment agency the two things that will cause them the most grief (and $$$ for the city or county or state) is the use of force; guns, fists, nightsticks, tazers and so on) and pursuit driving.

I am sure there was at least a basic use of force or shooting policy in place during the Farmer years and before.

A professional law enforcement agency, from a 10 man department to LAPD, is going to have a use of force policy in place and a way to document that their employees are aware of that policy; a signature on some document saying they have read the policy and understand it. Or when they go qualify or train at a shooting range one of the instructors,rangemasters will read the policy out loud and prepare a memo or document to memorialize all that were present.

Gallegos should be happy to give out his use of force policy. Unless it hasn't been updated in over 25 years.

If the DA's office does not have a use of force policy/shooting police they should disarm all the investigators and keep them in the office. But as I understanc it the DA's investigators seldom leave the office for other than lunch or personal business.

Gallegos didn't say his office doesn't have a "use of force" policy - he said it's none of our business!He may change his mind about that after he receives the Times-Standard's appeal to him to reconsider his decision not to make the policy available to the public. But, if he doesn't, you can bet the T-S is prepared to teach the errant & arrogant DA a very important lesson about what is & is not the public's business & that process will be very prominently & publicly displayed on its front pages. Stories such as that have been known to garner national attention.Gallegos references "the law" & "the constitution" as though he might be familiar with them but his penchant for conducting the public's business in private makes me think he might be confused about which country's & state's laws & constituions he has been sworn to uphold & protect.

And isn't the protracted and deliberate silence from Erik and Heraldo just deliciously coincidental? How clear does it need to bethat the word is out to not cover this issue, hope it dies, hope PVG's refusal to produce sign in sheets, refusal to produce a use of force policy, etc etcjust goes away? They've shut up aboutthe lack of a Cheri Moore report too. Just coincidentally, that is.

Paul's Out.

Total Pageviews

Paul Gallegos

The Humboldt County Grand Jury found that "Weak leadership and poor managerial practices" have undermined the office... Implicit in all evidence gathered by the Grand Jury - including interviews with the D.A. - is the unfortunate truth that the D.A. exhibits a limited understanding of how things are done in the department" Gallegos "lacks the global perspective needed to keep the department operating efficiently," and quotes an unnamed staff member as saying, "The D.A. does not fully understand the functionality of many of the things we do here" - Years later, in his own words: "I’m not an administrator, they didn’t elect me to be an administrator, they elected me to make sure this office runs..."

It’s still heresy to say it out loud, but the great secret of the Gallegos constituency is how many people in the camp are, truth be told, sick to death of the man. I have seen radical lefty Humboldt State professors roll their eyes and gag when his name comes up. I have talked to more than one person on his endorsement list who half-hates himself for allowing his name to be used. The question is: What will these people do in the privacy of the voting booth?Hank Sims

Gallegos on Measure T

6 minute VIDEO Click on the pic Anonymous: Gallegos looks and sounds like he either had been drinking or hitting off his bong. What a nut.... Anonymous: My favorite Gallegos moment in this snippet is when he says he supports Measure T for two reasons and holds up one finger to emphasize the point.

PleaDealsRUS

Letting Bad Guys Off Easy Since 2003

Douglas & Zanotti

CASE TOSSED The district attorney misrepresented the law and failed to provide evidence of former Eureka Police Chief David Douglas' and Lt. Tony Zanotti's innocence during a criminal grand jury inquiry into the 2006 shooting death of Cheri Lyn Moore, defense attorneys argued in court documents filed Thursday... ”Our judicial system stands as a real and necessary check on the grand jury indictment process,” one of the documents states. “This court has the authority and the means by which to halt this prosecution, which is justified neither by the undisputed facts, nor by the law.”

Gallegos has taken what was "arguably the state's best small DA's office, with a cutting edge CAST program that "trained the trainers"... into a bunch of time serving bureaucratic wannabee brown nosers, lightly sprinkled with a couple of earnest learners who are sure to split as soon as possible.

One weeps for Max Cardoza who won Angellel, and for Maggie Fleming who won so many impossible victories. Mired in Humboldt for personal reasons, they have to suffer the ignominy of working for Paul, with Yougo, yes, yougo who has freed more people as a prosecutor than he did as a defense attorney. As has Paul. Anonymous comment

Gallegos has answers for everything. I’ve never met anyone whose answers came so quickly, with such polish - except about his law school(s). He likely sounded the same way when promising to get prosecutors off their anachronistic “at will” status and onto civil service status. It never happened. Indeed, he told them, “Disloyalty will not be tolerated” – a real morale builder.

He sounds great. What progressive doesn’t want to believe in him? But it’s a myth. He’s an intellectual lightweight and self-aggrandizer who tries to please everybody with glib answers. Jim Fahey for The Arcata Eye

The Humboldt County DA's office is one of the most exciting prosecutorialoffices in California.

Its District Attorney, Paul Gallegos, is willing to charge anyone who commitswrongdoing--no matter how wealthy, sacrosanct, or ruthless. He believes in total equality before the law. He also plans to be innovative in promoting programs of prevention and treatment. He wants to make it the best prosecutorial office of its size in the nation.... Gallegos' Help Wanted ad

Plagiarism

1980 Murder

Gallegos' OWN Quotes

★ ...District Attorney Paul Gallegos said he believes the statute of limitations clock, even on misdemeanors, doesn't start running until law enforcement knows or reasonably should have known of the offense. In this case, Gallegos said, that means the statute of limitations would not run out at least until Feb. 8, 2009, or one year after Gundersen's arrest and the discovery of the photographs in question...

★ “I never said that the information was not available under the Freedom of Information Act. Quite the contrary, I informed you that our use of force policy is not a public record.” Paul Gallegos to the Times Standard 5/25/07

★ ...“One is that I do everything to make people happy which means I don’t stand for anything except for just something,” he said. “The other is I stand for something and I try to be a leader and take some people, a group of people, a community someplace and I say guess what folks, this is who I am. I stand for your beliefs. We share these beliefs or we don’t. You get the option to judge that. This is who I am and I am committed to leading us this place, wherever it is...." Eureka Reporter Gallegos defends record, looks ahead 7/3/2005

★ Note the difference between what he SAID, and what he DOES..."...So what are these issues? Top on Gallegos' list is the proliferation of "garbage cases," small-time crimes and overcharged cases that he said are clogging up the court system.

Garbage cases, said Gallegos, come in two forms: Cases that would lose if actually brought to trial and cases that are overcharged for the crimes committed. The idea behind filing both kinds of garbage, he said, is to get the defendant to plead guilty, netting a conviction without having to go into court.

Again, the IRONY is astounding! Look at what he SAYS, and then think about what he DOES! "Probably 95 percent of the cases that are filed plead guilty. In fact, there are a lot of cases that are filed on the assumption they will plead guilty, because of the time and expense involved in defending them. But these cases shouldn't even be filed in the first place, because if they were challenged, they would lose," Gallegos said. Better yet: If they weren't filed at all, it would save the county time and money...." North Coast Journal 2/21/02 Too bad he didn't take his own advice.

★ “Tim’s a stud,” he said. “He really is; anyone would be stoked to have him.” Gallegos on his second in command right hand man Assistant District Attorney Tim Stoen. (Former second in command right hand man to Jim Jones/People's Temple.)

NOT GUILTY!

"This is not the crime of the century. I'll concede that entirely." Humboldt County DA Paul Gallegos on the Toddler Wandering case, where he threw the full weight of the law against an innocent father. The jury took a couple of minutes to sign the papers needed to find him not guilty. Only one example of Gallegos' schizophrenic pattern of pursuing cases.

Local serial killer

Get it on Amazon

NOTE:

"Helping Crush Progressivism" - ie: exposing the predatory litigious orgs and those who seek power for power's sake.... The original purpose of watchpaul is to post important documents relating to Humboldt County District Attorney Paul Gallegos and his handlers who seek to gain power through the acquisition of political offices. This includes, but is not limited to, the manipulations of "Humboldt Watershed Council," "EPIC," "Baykeeper," and other activist groups - the unregulated orgs. It also includes the master manipulators, such as Richard Salzman and Ken Miller.

Links to key stories and documents are also included in the sidebar, so that you do not have to try to scroll back through what has become a lengthy series of posts. I encourage you to use the Search and Labels features as well.

NOTE:

The Eureka Reporter ceased publication and pulled all online archives. Links to ER stories will no longer work. Some stories have been saved on watchpaul.articles, the rest can, hopefully, be accessed at the Humboldt State University Library.